I had a 10 cup Krups rice cooker I bought at the local Le Gourmet Chef we lost our lease sale. It also steamed and slow cooked. I never used it to full capacity for the 10 years I owned it. After 10 or so years it finally wore out and started shutting off before the rice was cooked, so I went shopping for a new one. I ended up buying another Krups, only this one was 5 cup capacity. It also steams and slow cooks, and in addition it makes oatmeal! I have found I don't miss the extra 5 cup capacity, my rice seems to cook faster in the smaller unit, and the other functions works just as well as the old 10 cup rice cooker did, but I do have to admit that I have never made oatmeal in it.

BTW, that is an awful lot of money to spend on a rice cooker. You can get the Krups unit, and I have never found any appliances of any kind more reliable than Krups, for between $65 and $80 American depending on where you shop.

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Had the same question myself. I went with the 10 cup model for a few reasons:

1) The minimum capacity for the 6 cup models is still 2 cups of rice. The same for the 10 cup model. At least that is how they are marked on the pictures of the pot and the manuals I downloaded for the 6 cup models. I do not have experience making one cup in either size

2) The Cuckoo's multi cook function allows you to use it as a electric pressure cooker and I wanted the added capacity for that

3) The new Cuckoo CRP-HW1087F has an English voice guide.

It is big on the counter and expensive. Well, is it expensive if you use it everyday for 5 to 10 years?? About 25 cents a use

I know it's a big investment, but I hope to use it everyday, for a long time. It looks like a quality machine. The manual is in English and so are the buttons. It looks to be the crem-de-la-crem, or at-least as high as I want to go. :)

Wow, my $6 rice cooking bowl that I use in the microwave is really out dated. I'm not so sure 6 cups of cooked rice would feed 12 of the guys that come to my house. That's 1/2 cup each. It takes more than a 1/2 cup to grow them 6'3", 210 pounds so I would have to add a side or two of beef to the menu and 10 pounds of baked potatoes.

I wound up buying an Aroma 20 cup rice cooker a few months ago and I love having the extra room. It's just myself and husband right now but I find that I'm usually making far more rice to freeze for later.

My dear Aroma cooker was about 25 or 30 dollars on sale and has done just as well as a 200 dollar cooker a friend of mine has. It's been getting a workout lately and easily gets used four times a week, especially with summer blazing and our lack of air conditioning. Being able to use the steaming basket is also very handy and cuts down my stove top time by an hour or more on average.

Since rice is so easy to cook and so inexpensive I don't quite understand the concept of cooking more than you need (and freezing it) particularly considering that a rice cooker is so easy to use, and that I've never found reheated rice to be as freshly cooked rice.

I usually make fried rice next day with any unused rice. I'm pretty sure that's why fried rice was invented, the best way to use next day rice.

I bought my Cuisinart rice cooker to cook rice but I was pleasantly surprised with the steamer basket which is a set and forget way of having steamed vegetables with dinner. Just cut the vegetables, add water to the basket, then at the right stage of preparing dinner just push the button and the vegetables are ready about 15-20 minutes later. Really nice for entertaining.

Since rice is so easy to cook and so inexpensive I don't quite understand the concept of cooking more than you need (and freezing it)

Mostly my reason is because if I'm out of the house and my husband can't cook something in 5 minutes he'll just heat up cup o noodles. This way he can toss it into the wok, add a couple chopped veggies and do it in 5.

Plus, I have a very horrid memory and I usually forget to cook the simplest thing, usually the rice or pasta.